Dibs in Search of Self: The Renowned, Deeply Moving Story of an Emotionally Lost Child Who Found His Way Back

Dibs gets the measles and misses a week with Dr. Axline, but comes back after having gotten over the contagious period. He plays happily, singing about all the happiness in the world, the birds, and the sky. He tells Dr. Axline about how grateful he was to receive her get-well card, and the pussy willows (plants) that accompanied it. Dibs adds that his father encouraged him to put them in water so they could grow roots and be planted in the yard, and Dr. Axline is encouraged to hear that father and son have become more receptive. He also mentions his mother and how she read him stories while he was sick. He then asks Dr. Axline what therapy is upon reading the door sign again. Dr. Axline explains that it’s a means, a place, where a person is free to be themselves and use the time as they choose. Dibs shares his love of reading and the advanced books he has at home. After the session, Dr. Axline wonders how Dibs’s parents could have considered him lacking in any way when they also acknowledged his intelligence. She also wonders why Dibs continues to teeter between infancy and maturity.

Dibs come in for his session happier than usual, partly because he gets to stay longer today, and partly because his grandmother is visiting soon. His first task of the day is picking up each paint jar in sequence and singing about each color. He associates the colors with particular emotions, memories, objects, and places: “Oh, black! Oh, night! Oh sable dark! […] “Oh red, angry paint. Oh paint that scowls” (129). Each of Dibs’s associations is fairly common, but when addressing the yellow paint, he calls it an “angry, mean color” (129), confusing Dr. Axline. After this, he plays with the water in the sink, washes some dishes, and enjoys watching everything get wet and clean. Next, he sets out cups and fills them with water, explaining that he plans to have a tea party for children. Dr. Axline notes this is Dibs’s first expression of wanting to play with his peers. He narrates as he pours water and pretend sugar, and threatens to lock his pretend guests in their room if they don’t behave. When he accidentally spills one of the cups, he cries and declares the tea party over: “Stupid people make accidents!” (133). Dibs demands to leave the room and go to Dr. Axline’s office, where he sits and thinks for a moment before announcing that he may have been careless, but he isn’t stupid. Dr. Axline is proud to see Dibs work through his own negative feelings. He looks at Dr. Axline’s calendar and starts talking about his and his family’s birthdays, marking them on the calendar. He marks today as his “most important day” (137) but doesn’t explain why. When Dibs’s mother arrives, she seems friendlier than usual.

Dibs come to his next session with his mother and comments on the beauty of Dr. Axline’s dress. Dibs’s mother seems friendly, and Dibs seems more open with her. He is excited to show Dr. Axline a recent birthday gift, which he brings to the playroom. He pulls out an international code set and explains how it works, then leaves it to look out the window. Dibs watches a truck pull in and out, saying goodbye to it; two girls walk by, saying hello to Dibs. When Dibs doesn’t respond, they ask if something is wrong with him, which upsets him. He tells Dr. Axline that he will only talk to the truck, not people. He pretends to bake, singing as he does so, then lies in the sand with a baby bottle in his mouth. Afterward, Dibs decides to play with the sink, filling it up until it overflows before turning it off. He asks Dr. Axline to take him to her office and brings his code set. He sends a coded message to Dr. Axline, and it reads “I am Dibs. I am Dibs. I am Dibs” (148).

When Dibs comes to his next session, he refers to the playroom as “the magic room where I do whatever it is I have to do” (150). After gazing out the window and commenting on the vastness of the world, he tells Dr. Axline about how he fears some people, but not her, and how he feels safe in the playroom. He tells Dr. Axline that his father used to dislike him but seems to like him more lately. Dibs goes to the dollhouse and picks up the dolls he considers a mother, father, sister, and brother (though he never refers to the boy doll as a brother). The mother doll goes for a walk while the father doll sits inside, smoking his pipe, with the boy doll in his room, locked in. The sister doll is sent to boarding school. The father lets his son out of his room, and he runs out of the house, down the street. The father goes out to buy the boy a microscope, and when he returns and calls for the boy, the boy runs inside, causing a lamp to fall and break. The father calls him “a stupid, silly, careless boy” (153), and when the mother comes home, she repeats the same sentiment. Suddenly, a giant boy (Dibs) appears and locks the mother and father inside the house. When the father drops a match and the house starts to burn, Dibs panics and starts to cry, throwing his hands around Dr. Axline. He goes back to the dollhouse to save the parents, and after doing so, seems relieved. Dibs reveals that his parents used to lock him in his room, but don’t do it anymore. Upon confronting his life’s locked doors, he leaves without “the sorrowful feelings he had uprooted there” (155).